Public Engagement

Research

How
Academia Is Failing Government (Governing)Because the incentives for academic research
are misaligned, it has little impact on the real world of public administration
and policy.

Opportunity

How the
Middle Class May Have Gotten a Raise (The
Upshot)The Census Bureau’s estimates of income stop in
2014. It will not release those for 2015 until next month, and early estimates
suggest that household incomes may be way up. Sentier Research, a research firm
formed by two former Census Bureau employees, estimates that real median
household incomes grew nearly 3.8 percent in 2015. This would be the largest
annual gain in household income since Sentier began producing the series in
2000.

How
Milwaukee Shook Off the Rust (Politico)While many cities have sought to repurpose
their old industrial zones into hip condos, restaurants or commercial lofts for
tech companies—or simply knock them down—Milwaukee has invested in resurrecting
its own, with intense planning, new infrastructure and exacting design
standards. In the process, a coalition of public officials, community activists
and manufacturers have created a model for the 21st century industrial park,
where manufacturing, recreation and environmentally-friendly engineered
landscapes co-exist. Milwaukee is at work applying the lessons learned in the
nearby port district and in the 30th Street industrial corridor several miles
to the north.

As Skill
Requirements Increase, More Manufacturing Jobs Go Unfilled (The Wall Street Journal)Amid anxiety about the disappearance of factory
jobs, thousands of them are going unfilled across the U.S. The number of open
manufacturing jobs has been rising since 2009, and this year stands at the
highest level in 15 years, according to Labor Department data. Factory work has
evolved over the past 15 years or so as companies have invested in advanced
machinery requiring new sets of skills. Many workers who were laid off in recent
decades—as technology, globalization and recession wiped out lower-skilled
roles—don’t have the skills to do today’s jobs. The mismatch poses a problem
for the economy, stymieing the ability of businesses to increase production and
weighing on growth, executives say.

K-12 Education

Why do
kids go to school? Americans are divided on the answer (Washington Post)What is school for? A new poll released Monday night shows that Americans are divided on the issue. And in an era when public education has been under attack, most public school parents still think highly of their children’s schools — and an overwhelming majority of Americans do not want failing schools to be closed down but would rather see them improved.

School
Closures: Americans Oppose Them, But Research Suggests They're Not A Bad Idea (NPR)For nearly a half-century, the professional
educators' organization Phi Delta Kappa has released a poll this time of year
to capture the public's attitudes towards public education. This year, by far
the most lopsided finding in the survey was about a controversial reform
policy: school closures. By 84 percent to 14 percent, Americans said that even
when a public school has been failing for several years, the best response is
to keep the school open and try to improve it rather than shut it down. Yet
despite that sentiment, some early research suggests that school closures may
work as advertised, in that they steer students toward higher-performing
schools.

National
Labor Relations Board decides charter schools are private corporations, not
public schools (Washington Post)The National Labor Relations Board decided in
two separate cases last week that — as far as federal labor law is concerned —
charter schools are not public schools but private corporations. The decisions
apply only to the specific disputes from which they arose, involving
unionization efforts at charter schools in New York and in Pennsylvania. But
they plunge the labor board into a long-running debate over the nature of
charter schools: publicly funded, privately run institutions that enroll about
3 million students nationwide.

Ohio
Colleges Have Funds to Help Students in Emergencies (Community College Daily)For college students who are poor, the margin between graduating
and dropping out can be as slim as an unpaid utility bill or a busted
transmission. Even if they have grants and loans to pay for most of their
tuition and housing, any unexpected expense can kill the best-laid plans. At
many institutions, that's where student emergency funds come in. Often
informally run and little known, they provide the $50 or $75 or $200 that can
make all the difference to a student with little financial cushion for contingencies.

College
Students Are Speaking, Are the Candidates Listening? (The Hill)City Year, Youth Build, and many other America
Forward Coalition members offer solutions to many of the barriers today’s
students face, yet they need resources and support at the federal level to
allow more Americans to benefit from their effective programs.

Transformation
Through Education: The Importance of Second Chance Pell(U.S. Department of Education)We know the reach of educational attainment
extends beyond an individual, often impacting families as well. That impact was
on display when Talisha, the child of a formerly incarcerated parent shared how
her dad’s educational journey refocused her effort on doing well in school. I
won’t soon forget that daughter’s pride when more than half of the incarcerated
students noted the impact of her father on their drive for education as well.
It’s simple, those who get it pass it on to others – their own families and
their community inside and outside prison walls.

Health Care

Health
Care Is A Right, Not A Business (Huffington
Post Blog)In a response to a column from Megan McCardle
last week, Richard Eskow writes: "Rights and commerce can coexist in a
democratic society, as long as commerce doesn’t threaten rights. But when they
clash, commerce must give way. Since commerce has failed to provide affordable
and accessible health care, it must yield to rights."

PriceCheck:
Not All Health Care Transparency Tools Are Alike (Health News Florida)Suzanne Delbanco is executive director of the
healthcare watchdog group Catalyst For Payment Reform. She says the best health
care comparison tools offer a way to measure quality as well as price. “Pair it
with quality information so that I'm not being misled by the price alone, which
really at the end of the day is not a good proxy for the overall value of the
care I'm going to get,” Delbanco said. Five years ago, she says, consumer
advocates dreamed of having more price transparency tools. Now, the information
is there, now we just have to sort it out.

Obamacare
Premiums Set to Rise, Even for Savvy Shoppers (The Upshot)In the last few years, even though premiums in
the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces were rising, most
customers could avoid a big price rise by shopping for a cheaper plan. Next
year, according to a preliminary analysis, that is going to be a lot harder.